


Love for Sale

by poisonivory



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sugar Daddy, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Frottage, Hand Jobs, Hot Dad Roy Harper, M/M, Mutual Pining, Panties, Sugar Daddy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:26:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29789145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonivory/pseuds/poisonivory
Summary: Roy's between jobs and stuck in a not-so-great living situation when he runs into his best friend's little brother turned murderous vigilante, the Red Hood. Roy knows that Jason's dangerous, but he can't deny the attraction between them - and when Jason offers him a luxury apartment in exchange for continued hookups, who is Roy to turn it down? All he has to do is keep it strictly business, no feelings allowed. He can do that, right?(Spoiler: wrong.)
Relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Comments: 44
Kudos: 166





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set pre-52, post-Under the Red Hood and Roy leaving the Outsiders, but before Roy joins the Justice League and, uh, I guess we'll just say Final Crisis and Battle for the Cowl didn't happen in this universe. Specific content warnings for violence to come in later chapters, but this is a Jason who definitely kills people a whole lot, so no worries if that's not your cup of tea and you want to dip.
> 
> The title is inspired by the Cole Porter song by the same name. Thanks to [mizzmarvel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizzmarvel/pseuds/mizzmarvel) for the beta!
> 
> CW: There is homophobic language and violence in this chapter (from the bad guys).

Roy hunkered down into a deeper squat from his perch on the fire escape, eyes trained on the bodega across the street, his bow in his hand.

This was stupid. Of course, with the life he’d led, it didn’t rank as even in the top ten stupidest things he’d done, but it was still stupid. This was _Gotham_. You couldn’t go three blocks without tripping over a vigilante. Roy didn’t need to be out here.

But he’d stopped in that bodega on his way home earlier to pick up a couple of odds and ends and immediately clocked the two teenagers lurking very unsubtly in the corner of the store and staring at the cashier. Roy had drifted over to the Hostess display a few feet away from them and pretending to be agonizing over his choice of fruit pie while he listened to their murmured conversation.

“You got it?” one of them murmured.

“Yeah,” the other one said, nodding his head towards the cashier. “Old dude’s gonna shit his pants when we come back here with a _gun_.”

The first kid elbowed him. “Man, shut the fuck up!” he said, looking at Roy, who of course had heard absolutely nothing while he changed his mind and grabbed a pack of Ding Dongs instead.

He should have called Dick. Or Oracle. Hell, he was perfectly capable of calling _Batman_. There were plenty of people in this city who could handle a little corner store burglary.

But instead he’d gone home, asked the babysitter if she could stay a couple more hours at a doubled rate, and grabbed his gear. And now he was on this fire escape, microflexing every few seconds so that his blood didn’t pool in his feet and his hands didn’t go numb from the cold. Trust Gotham to have winters that were somehow bitterly cold and damp, yet never managed to snow and make things look pretty for at least an hour or two.

God, he didn’t want to be in Gotham. But after the Outsiders had imploded and he’d lost his steady paycheck, it had made more sense to cross the river from New York to Jersey, where the cost of living—and raising a child—was lower. He had some irons in the fire back in DC, but one of the many problems with working for the Feds was how long it took for anything to get approved, even re-hiring a former contractor. Which left him living in this freezing armpit of a city and trying not to burn through his savings too fast, and _that_ meant a shitty apartment where he slept on a pull-out couch so Lian could have the single bedroom, in a neighborhood where idiot kids planned to knock off bodegas out loud, in the bodega itself.

Ollie would have helped, money-wise. Roy _knew_ Ollie would have helped. But Ollie had seemed so _proud_ of Roy ever since he came back from the dead, of how he was doing as a leader and a hero and a father. Roy didn’t want to have to go to him with his hand out, especially when it was just a temporary setback. A few months and he’d be settled in DC.

But maybe that had something to do with why he was out here on a cold rainy night, instead of checking to make sure that his daughter was asleep and then heading to bed himself. He couldn’t do much right now, but he could at least stop these kids from fucking up a bunch of lives, including their own.

Three customers went in. Four minutes later, one customer came out.

Less than a minute after that, Roy saw the cashier put his hands over his head.

“Bingo,” he muttered, and loosed a grappling arrow.

It embedded itself just above the bodega door. Roy rode the line down across the street, using his momentum to kick the door open with both feet. “Freeze!” he shouted, already rolling and drawing a second arrow, a plain broadhead this time.

He took in the scene in a split second: the cashier looking terrified with his hands up, the kids nearly as scared. And sure enough, one of them had a gun. Roy shot it out of his hand, sending it spinning across the floor.

That pretty much dealt with any threat these kids were going to pose, so Roy straightened up and let his bow hang by his side. “Okay, that’s enough of that,” he said. “Can we consider the ‘scared straight’ portion of the evening done, or do I need to call—”

Gunfire rang out, shattering the glass windows and door.

“Shit, shit!” Roy hissed, dropping to the ground. The cashier and the kids did the same. What the fuck? This was just a stupid corner bodega, who the hell was bringing this kind of firepower?

The gunshots slowed, becoming more scattered, and the kid who’d been holding the gun scrambled for his dropped weapon. “Kid, stay down!” Roy snapped.

But the idiot grabbed the gun and turned it on Roy with shaking hands. _Shit._

“Shouldn’t have gotten involved, hero,” he said, but he sounded more petrified than intimidating.

“Do it, Eric!” his friend said. “You know how it works. Waste a cape and you’re made for life!”

“Okay, first, let the record show that I have _never_ worn a cape,” Roy said, holding up his hands as pacifyingly as he could from his prone position. “Second, waste _anyone_ and you’ve got a murder charge on your rap sheet. You think that’s a good idea?”

“Shut up!” Eric said. “Just...just fucking shut up, okay, and—”

_Wonk!_ A Batarang came whizzing in from the opposite side of the store from the windows and hit him on the side of the head. He crumpled to the ground.

Oh, thank god. “You Bats always have impeccable timing,” Roy said, turning toward the direction it had come from, expecting to see Dick, or Bruce, or any of his gaggle of teen sidekicks. Hell, maybe even Helena.

It was none of those people.

His rescuer was a big man, taller and broader than Roy. He didn’t have a uniform, just a leather jacket over a kevlar shirt and tactical pants. His face was completely hidden by a red helmet, but Dick had filled Roy in on Gotham’s newest villain. Roy knew who the Red Hood was.

“J—” he started, and caught himself. “Hood. Thanks. What the hell’s going on outside?” The gunshots had stopped entirely, and he had a feeling Red Hood had something to do with that.

“Nothing, at the moment.” Red Hood’s voice was deep and yet somehow tinny, computerized by the helmet. “These two chucklefucks were hitting up the store as part of a gang initiation. Some of the gang members were watching to make sure they did it, so when you crashed the party, they started shooting.”

It shouldn’t have been possible to pick up on Red Hood’s tone with that voice modulator. Roy could still tell when he was being called an idiot. “Well. Thanks again.”

He had more questions, but they were less important than dealing with the current situation. He ziptied the still-conscious kid, who had seemed scared before but was clearly on the verge of pissing himself now that the Red Hood was here, and turned to the cashier. “I’m going to call this in,” he told him. “I can stay until the police get here.”

Red Hood seemed to take that as his cue, or maybe he’d just spent too many of his formative years around Batman, because when Roy turned around, he was gone. Roy gnawed at his lip. Maybe he should have asked those questions after all.

The quickest way to get help in Gotham was to call Oracle. He tipped her off to the situation without mentioning Red Hood, then checked to make sure the coast was clear outside. The two gangsters Red Hood had taken out were slumped on the sidewalk across the street, but they didn’t seem to be bleeding. Huh.

Once the cops had arrived and taken Roy’s statement, there was nothing left to do but go back to his own apartment. He decided to travel by roof—he still had some adrenalin to burn off. Not to mention that after over a decade in the business, he could tell when he was being followed.

Sure enough, a few blocks from the bodega, his tail came out of the shadows. Roy had been about to gather up speed to jump the next roof, but instead he let himself come to a stop.

“Jason,” he said. “Been a while.”

Red Hood paused. Then he reached up and pulled the helmet off.

And there in a red domino mask was Jason Todd, who Roy had last seen over six years ago. Roy had still been Speedy, then. Jason had been Robin, fifteen years old and excited by everything. Intellectually, Roy had known that this man and that boy were the same person, but it hadn’t seemed real until now. But there was the full red mouth Roy remembered, the dark locks hanging in heavy curls across his forehead.

Young Jason hadn’t had that sharp line to his jaw, though, or the dark stubble dusting it, or the bump in his nose that said it had been broken at one point and probably more than once. He hadn’t been this _big_ , either, a couple inches taller than Roy with broad shoulders and thighs like tree trunks.

He hadn’t been carrying guns.

“Dick told you,” he said. His voice was different too, of course, a bass rumble without the helmet. Roy’s skin prickled.

“It came up,” he admitted. “He made you out to be a bit more bloodthirsty, though.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. “I don’t kill _kids_ ,” he said.

“And the guys outside?”

An easy shrug. “Knocked ‘em out and bugged ‘em. If they managed to wake up before the GCPD gets to the scene I’ll have ears inside wherever they’re holing up. Did they?”

“Nah, but it’s a smart play,” Roy said. “Okay, cool.”

Jason’s pause before he answered felt distinctly confused. “That’s it?”

“Sorry?”

“You’re not gonna try to take me in?” Jason asked. He gestured to himself. “Crime lord.” He pointed to Roy. “Superhero. It’s kind of what you do.”

“Crime lord? Really?” Roy asked. “Because you just saved my life, and _I_ didn’t see you kill anyone.”

“You said Dick talked to you,” Jason said, and now he sounded vaguely annoyed.

“He did,” Roy agreed. “I’m still not gonna jump a guy who just saved my ass because you two got into it last year. Why, did you _want_ me to try to take you in?”

Jason shrugged. “It seems to be the go-to move for most people,” he said. “Wouldn’t recommend it, though. It won’t end very well for you.”

Roy’s skin prickled with heat again at the unsubtle threat. “Well, lucky for you I’m not most people,” he said. “Plus I have some experience with being the guy everyone in the capes and tights set is talking about. I heard Dick’s side of the story. I didn’t hear yours.”

He paused. He should probably go home. The babysitter’s fee was going to be _astronomical_. Plus, it wasn’t like he didn’t believe Dick that Jason was a killer. The man had just _threatened_ him, after all.

He just...wanted to believe he was more than _just_ a killer. If only for the sake of the fifteen-year-old boy he remembered.

“You want to get a drink and _tell_ me your side?” he asked.

This time the pause was much longer. Roy was starting to wonder if he should be reaching for his bow when Jason finally tilted his head and said, “Yeah, okay.”

Okay, then.

*

Roy had not remembered Jason’s eyes correctly. He’d vaguely categorized them as blue, mostly because Dick’s were, but that turned out to be overly simplistic. They _were_ blue, but even in the dim, reddish light of the bar, he could pick out more complicated notes: flecks of gray and green under dark, heavy lashes. Tilted down at the outside corners, giving them a slightly mournful, appealing expression.

_Watch it, Harper,_ he told himself sternly. This was Dick’s kid brother, after all, not to mention a self-proclaimed crime lord.

But shit, those eyes were _something_.

The bar was a shitty hole in the wall that looked like it might have had pretensions of being an Irish pub several decades back before giving in to ennui. It was a weeknight, after happy hour but before the less-than-legal jobs ended, so there were only maybe half a dozen hardened regulars there, slumped over the bar or sitting in booths and staring vacantly at the MMA playing on the TV.

Roy bought them a couple of beers, then pointed at the shabby pool table in the back, where a couple of men were finishing up a game. “Wanna play when they’re done?”

Jason gave him a curious look but shrugged. What, had he expected Roy to start grilling him on his philosophy toward violence the minute they walked in the door? “Sure,” he said.

Roy bit back a grin and leaned against a nearby booth to watch the current game wrap up. He nursed his beer slowly while he did. He didn’t mind the occasional social drink, but he knew better than to come anywhere close to getting fucked up, not with his history. Jason wasn’t drinking particularly quickly either, and something about the way his mouth twisted after each sip made Roy think maybe Jason hadn’t had beer very frequently in the past. He would only be about twenty-one, after all, and who knew what the fuck he’d been doing all these years?

It was sort of adorable. It also reminded Roy that he shouldn’t be watching Jason’s mouth as closely as he was.

The other men finished their game in silence, and Roy stepped forward to rack the balls. “You can break,” he told Jason magnanimously. It had been years since he’d found someone who was willing to play with him. He didn’t need to be an asshole _right_ away.

“Okay.” Jason picked up a cue and lined up his shot. Roy’s eyes lingered on the way his pants stretched over the curve of his ass as he bent forward.

Fuck. _Eyes up, Harper,_ he reminded himself, and watched as Jason’s break sank two striped balls.

“Not bad,” he said. Jason’s second shot missed, and Roy snagged a cue of his own off the rack and sent a solid ball into a corner pocket.

“So, what, are we just gonna fucking play pool?” Jason asked abruptly, sounding annoyed.

Roy peeked at him over his shoulder. “Did you have another item for the agenda?”

“You said you wanted to hear my side.”

Roy sank the red ball. “So talk.”

Jason scowled, then took a swig of his beer and made another face at it. “What’s the fucking point? You telling me you’re not gonna be like Dick and the rest of them? Superheroes don’t kill, right?”

“Preferably not,” Roy said, and Jason rolled his eyes. “I have, though.”

Jason choked on his next sip. “What?”

“When I worked for Checkmate, when I—oh, right. You were…away,” Roy said, and Jason snorted at the clumsy euphemism. “You know I did government work though, right? Last time I saw you it was the CBI. After that it was Checkmate, and I was mostly a sniper, and…” He shrugged again. “They usually weren’t interested in non-lethal methods for taking down targets.”

“Does Dick know?”

“Ohhh yeah,” Roy said, sinking the blue ball. Dick had been the recipient of about a third of Roy’s guilt-stricken three a.m. phone calls when his mind hadn’t been able to stop looping endlessly over what he’d done; Donna and Dinah had gotten the rest. All three of them had always stayed on the phone with him until the panicked half-sobs, muffled so as not to wake Lian, had subsided. He would always be grateful.

“What a fucking hypocrite,” Jason spat. “But then, the rules always were different for me, weren’t they?”

“Well, yeah,” Roy said, sinking the orange ball, and Jason looked surprised again. “You’re his kid brother. Of _course_ he thinks he can tell you what to do. Of _course_ he wants to think of you as the sweet, innocent kid you used to be.”

Jason snorted. “I stopped being innocent long before I became Robin.”

“Yeah, but you were still sweet,” Roy said, with a little smile. “I remember. Anyway, I’m not saying it’s the only reason, and I’m not saying he’s right. But maybe Dick’s just having a hard time seeing that you’ve grown up.”

“But you’re not?” Jason asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, I’m _very_ aware that you’ve grown,” Roy said, and then realized how that sounded. Well, fuck it. It wasn’t like it wasn’t _true_ , and if Jason was going to shoot him, he would’ve done so already.

But Jason just paused, and then raised an eyebrow. “You know, you could get in trouble talking like that in a place like this,” he said.

Roy met his eyes over the table. “Maybe I like trouble,” he replied. He didn’t think he imagined the way Jason’s breathing hitched slightly at that.

Then Roy sank the eight ball and straightened up. “And that’s the game,” he said.

Jason blinked at him, then the table. “Did you—did you just _hustle_ me?” he spluttered.

Roy cracked up. “Shouldn’t play pool with an archer, Jay! It’s not gonna work out well for you.” This was why no one would ever play him anymore. He couldn’t even play Ollie, because whoever broke would just sweep the whole table and the game would be over. The look of shocked indignation on Jason’s face was well worth the price of one beer.

“You fucking _asshole_ ,” Jason said, but for the first time there was something approaching a smile on his face. Roy grinned back, feeling unreasonably pleased with himself.

“Hey!” said a voice behind him. “You two nancies wanna wrap it up so someone else can play?”

Roy turned around to see one of the regulars who’d been playing before them scowling at him. His bleary eyes told Roy he wasn’t sober; the broken capillaries in his red nose told Roy that this was his usual state.

“You _just_ played, and we’ve had the table for two minutes,” he said. “I didn’t realize the demand was so high at one a.m. on a Thursday.”

“Maybe I just don’t like you uptown pricks coming down here and slumming it in the Narrows,” the regular said.

“Fuck you, I was born in Park Row,” Jason said, looking highly offended.

Roy shrugged. “I’m from Arizona. Is that uptown? I can never remember.”

“Oh, fancy boy here thinks he’s funny,” the regular said.

“I do, but I didn’t know I was fancy,” Roy said. “That’s going on the resume.” Jason snorted.

“Yo, Carl, these guys giving you trouble?” another regular asked, coming up on the other side of them. Roy caught Jason’s quick eye movement and knew he’d noticed they were being flanked, very inexpertly.

“Just pissin’ me off,” said the first regular—Carl, apparently. “But if they get the fuck out of our bar—and you know what, hand over that expensive-ass jacket—I’ll find a way to be magnanimous.”

Jason’s eyebrows went up. “You’re trying to roll me for my _jacket?_ ” He looked at Roy. “This is hilarious, right?”

“It’s pretty fucking funny,” Roy agreed. A couple of the other regulars had started to approach, and he wondered idly if this was a frequent occurrence when strangers wandered in. “Boys. Seriously. Go sit down. You don’t want any of this.”

“Trying to protect your boyfriend?” Carl asked.

“Oh no, I’m trying to protect you from _him_ ,” Roy said. “I’m the nice one. I’m _so_ nice that I’ll even buy you all a round if you just walk away.”

“We don’t want your fucking craft beer, you hipster piece of shit,” said Not-Carl.

“I’m extremely positive they don’t serve craft beer here.”

“Enough of this,” Carl said, rolling his eyes and drawing back his fist to take a swing at Roy. “Let’s just kick their asses, the fucking—”

_Crack!_ Jason hit him in the head with his pool cue and he went down like a sack of wet cement.

Roy shrugged. “Told you you didn’t want this.”

There was a moment of stunned silence from the bar’s regulars. Then someone yelled “Get them!” and every drunk still standing hurled themselves at Roy and Jason.

It was...not much of a fight. There were only about half a dozen opponents and they weren’t exactly trained fighters, not to mention they’d all probably been drinking for at least the past four hours. Roy got close to Jason, just in case, and Jason swung the cue at another regular and shot Roy a wild, feral grin.

“When you ask someone out for a drink, you don’t make it boring, do you?” he asked.

Roy couldn’t help grinning back. “Hey, _you’re_ the one who hit him with a pool cue.”

He ducked under a thrown beer bottle and socked the thrower in the eye. Jason hit another one in the teeth and that was it—everyone was down except the couple of drunks slumped at the bar who had never gotten up in the first place.

“Well, that was invigorating,” Roy said. He glanced at the bartender, who was still wiping glasses behind the bar and looking bored. “We have a problem?”

The bartender shrugged. “You paid cash. I don’t care what you do.”

Jason was inspecting his knuckles, which were bleeding. “Fuck.”

“You okay?” Roy asked.

“Yeah, just sliced them open on that asshole’s teeth,” Jason said. “I’m gonna go wash this out, he probably had rabies.” He headed for the back of the bar, where a sign said “RESTROO” in what was left of its neon. Roy’s eyes drifted downward again as he walked away. Tactical pants didn’t do much for most men, but clearly Jason Todd wasn’t most men.

...Of _course_ he wasn’t. What the fuck was Roy thinking? He was supposed to be home with his kid, not getting into bar fights and flirting with a confirmed murderer—who, not incidentally, was his best friend’s little brother. Maybe he could have made the case when this started, at least to himself, that he’d asked Jason out for a drink to try to get inside the guy’s head, show him that not every superhero was against him. Nudge him back toward the side of the angels a little.

But now? Now Roy’s blood was singing in his veins and the wild grin on Jason’s face was all he could see, and he _wanted_.

Roy knew what people said about him, but he did actually possess self-control. Enough to keep his head from being turned by a nice ass or a pair of captivating eyes or an unmistakable aura of danger. Or even all three at once.

The right thing to do here was ease way, way back on the double entendres, finish his beer, and go home to Lian. Maybe give Jason his number for purely potential team-up-related reasons, just to let the guy know he wasn’t alone. Roy knew well enough how feeling alone could send someone down a path they’d wind up regretting.

Yeah. That was what he should do. That was the _right_ choice.

“Fuck it,” he said, and headed for the restrooms.

The men’s room was even more of a shithole than the rest of the bar, with the doors hanging at wonky angles on both stalls and graffiti everywhere. All it needed was a gloryhole to complete the aesthetic, and Roy figured the only reason there wasn’t one was related to the unconscious homophobes on the floor outside. Clearly this was not exactly the center of Gotham’s gay nightlife.

Jason was washing the blood out of his knuckles, which might have been the first time the tiny sink had ever been used. He met Roy’s eyes in the dingy mirror. “You need to go?” he asked.

Yeah, Roy knew all about how feeling alone could send someone down the wrong path.

“Not really,” he admitted.

Jason turned off the tap and flicked water from his hands before turning around. “So, what, you just missed my company?”

“Something like that.”

Jason walked toward Roy, who stayed where he was, in front of the door. Up close, Jason was definitely taller, even without the helmet, and almost certainly heavier, and Roy had just gotten ample evidence of how fast and vicious he could be. Roy wasn’t sure which of them would win in a fight if it came down to it, but it would be nasty, and it would hurt.

His dick twitched in his pants.

“You gonna move?” Jason asked.

Roy let his eyes drag all the way up the absolutely _luxurious_ length of Jason, from his shitkicking boots to those fucking _eyes_ , and he let Jason see him do it. “Do you want me to?”

Jason laughed and glanced away, but the movement of his chest told Roy he was breathing hard. “You weren’t kidding about liking trouble, huh?”

“God’s honest truth,” Roy said. “The only question is, does trouble like me?”

Jason kissed him.

Jason kissed him _hard_ , slamming him against the door and licking into Roy’s mouth the second their lips made contact. Roy gave as good as he got, though, arching against that firm, heavy body, sliding his hands into Jason’s thick curls and tugging.

_See, Dick,_ he caught himself thinking. _He kissed me first. It wasn’t my fault._ Then Jason nipped at his bottom lip and he stopped thinking anything at all.

Jason pressed him into the door hard enough to bruise, one thick thigh wedged between Roy’s. Roy let his hands drop from those curls to that ass, squeezing firmly and swallowing Jason’s startled moan.

“Fuck,” he managed, breaking away with a gasp. “Fuck, Jason, you’re so goddamn hot.”

“Shut up,” Jason grumbled, and kissed him again.

Roy kissed him back, grinding down on the thigh between his own. This was insane, this was _so stupid_ , but god, he wanted to take Jason home. He wanted to see that big gorgeous body naked in his bed—except his bed was a shitty pull-out couch and Lian was asleep in the next room. He almost asked Jason if he lived nearby, but fuck if grinding on him in a disgusting men’s room after a fight wasn’t doing it for Roy almost as much as having Jason in a bed would. Maybe more.

He used his grip on Jason’s ass to pull him even closer. Jason was getting hard, Roy could feel it even through all of their clothes, and it made Roy wild.

“Can I jerk you off?” he asked. “Please, Jay, let me touch you, I want to do it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jason said. “Is this how all superhero team-ups end?”

Roy laughed, knowing he sounded a little unhinged. “Only if I’m lucky,” he said. “Can I?”

Jason shuddered against him. “Fuck, yeah, do it,” he breathed.

Roy fumbled Jason’s pants open, reaching in and giving Jason’s dick a friendly squeeze before pulling him free. Jason was just as satisfyingly thick here as the rest of him, and the punched-out noise he made when Roy spat into his palm, got his hand around him properly, and stroked was something worth remembering.

“Yeah, fuck, let me hear you,” Roy said.

“We’re in a _men’s room_ ,” Jason replied with a shaky laugh.

“And everyone out there who got a good look at you and is still conscious is gonna be real jealous of me,” Roy said, grinning up at Jason and loving the way his face crumpled when Roy rubbed his thumb under the head of his cock.

“Are you always— _fuck_ —this full of shit?” Jason asked.

“Does this feel like I’m lying?” Roy asked, using his free hand to grab Jason’s and press it against his still-clothed erection.

Jason’s eyes went wide, which was both surprising and strangely adorable. “Shit, Spee—Arsenal.”

“Roy,” Roy corrected him, rocking into Jason’s broad palm, his own hand still working Jason’s dick. “Once I’ve put my hand down your pants, you can call me by my first name.”

Jason’s breath hitched as Roy twisted his wrist. “ _Roy._ Do you...do you want me to…?”

“Yeah,” Roy said. “God, yeah, Jay, please.”

Jason was clumsy getting Roy’s pants undone, but Roy couldn’t care less, especially when he was no longer uncomfortably trapped inside them and Jason’s callused fingers were on his sensitive skin. His hand was still bleeding. _Fuck._

“Wait, hang on,” he said as Jason started to reciprocate, lifting Jason’s hand to his mouth. He dragged his tongue across the palm, as wet as he could make it, and felt Jason pulse precome into his fist. “There you go.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Jason breathed, but he folded his hand around Roy’s dick, matching Roy’s rhythm until they were rocking against each other, Jason panting hot breaths against the side of Roy’s face. Roy tugged him down into another kiss, bumping noses and missing his mouth before he managed it, then broke away to kiss down the stubbled line of Jason’s jaw and over his throat.

Jason let out a low whine that vibrated against Roy’s lips, and Roy’s blood fizzed in his veins like champagne. The Red Hood might be a name to fear on the streets, but he was a _dream_ to touch, responding to every press of Roy’s mouth or change in his grip with barely muffled eager little sounds, like he couldn’t believe this was happening and never wanted it to stop. It just made Roy greedier, impatient to hear what other noises he could draw out of Jason, to watch him fall apart.

“Yeah,” Roy panted against Jason’s mouth, nonsensically. “Yeah, come on.”

“ _Roy_ ,” Jason said again, sending a shock of pleasure down Roy’s spine. “Roy, _fuck—!_ ” and he muffled a groan in the curve of Roy’s neck as he spilled into his fist.

Roy bit his lip as he stroked Jason through it, his other hand coming up to pet Jason’s broad back. “Holy shit, that was so hot,” he said as Jason’s dick twitched a final time in his hand. “Holy _shit_ , Jay.”

Jason slumped against him, his forehead resting on Roy’s shoulder, his hand loose around Roy’s dick. Roy pushed his hips into it, a gentle nudge. It wasn’t like he didn’t really, _really_ enjoy Jason’s body weight pressing him to the door, but he needed a little more than that right now.

“Shit, sorry,” Jason mumbled, tightening his grip, leaving Roy free to clutch at him with his clean hand and rock into his fist.

“Fuck, yeah, Jay, that’s so good, you’re so good,” he babbled into Jason’s ear. “Yeah, like that, just like that, your hand looks so fucking good on me, you sounded so fucking sweet when you came…”

“Jesus, do you ever shut up?” Jason asked, capturing Roy’s mouth again, and when he nipped at Roy’s bottom lip hard enough to hurt, Roy came.

When Roy blinked the stars from his eyes, he was still sagging against the door, and Jason was back at the sink and washing his hands again. His cheeks were still very pink.

“I guess the romance is dead,” Roy said, with a grin and a wink so that Jason would know he was kidding.

Jason snorted. “Blame it on the ambiance,” he replied, nodding at their filthy surroundings.

Roy shuffled over to the sink and nudged Jason over with his hip so they could share the faucet, washing his own hands before tucking himself away and doing up his fly. Jason turned off the water, and then Roy was just...standing in a disgusting men’s room with his best friend’s little brother after they’d exchanged mutual handjobs.

Cool.

“I should head home,” he said. This was the part he was no good at, the part where he had to remind himself not to cling. “But hey, I’m gonna be in Gotham for the next few months or so. I can give you my number if you want to, uh, team up again. Euphemistically or otherwise.”

Well, so much for not clinging.

Jason glanced away, clearly uncomfortable. “Don’t need it,” he said. “This is Red Hood’s turf. If I need you, I’ll find you.”

If Roy couldn’t seem to resist setting himself up for rejection, he at least knew it when he heard it. “Cool, cool. Well, thanks again for the save tonight.”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “Bye, Arsenal.”

Not _Roy_. Roy bit the inside of his cheek.

“Bye,” he said, and walked out of the bathroom.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite his best efforts, Roy thought about basically nothing but Jason for the next week.

To be fair, he had very little else to think about. Lian was in kindergarten for six hours a day. He still hadn’t heard back from DC. He’d gone from the complicated logistics of running a superhero team—and the even more complicated logistics of allowing Dick to think _he_ was running said team—to fiddling with trick arrows alone in his apartment. Which wasn’t a euphemism, but would have been accurate if it was.

So he thought about Jason. He thought about the way he moved, silent as a cat despite the size of him, and how he said he didn’t kill kids like he didn’t expect Roy to believe him. He thought the fierce joy on his face when he let the reckless violence explode out of him, and the way he blushed after sex. He thought about how he sounded when he came.

Roy had made enough mistakes in his life to recognize them after they happened. _Before_ they happened, really, but that rarely seemed to stop him. So he was well aware that he’d screwed up with Jason, but he wasn’t sure if it had been when he’d stepped into the bar, or when he’d stepped into the bathroom.

He also wasn’t sure if it was the kind of mistake that blew _over_ , or the kind that blew _up_. Jason seemed pretty explosive in general.

It did make for an awkward phone call with Dick, three days after the bar. Roy had the phone tucked between his chin and his shoulder while he tried to gather up Lian’s toys, which were overrunning the small apartment.

“Hey, you’re on Conway and Ninth, right?” Dick asked.

“Yeah,” Roy said, scooping up a toy truck that he was _absolutely_ going to step on someday and wind up breaking his neck. “Why? Sending me a present?”

“Nice try. Lian, maybe,” Dick said. “I’d just...keep an eye out after dark if I were you.”

Roy raised an eyebrow, even though he knew Dick couldn’t see it. “I know we dissolved the Outsiders a whole two weeks ago, but I haven’t gotten _totally_ out of shape since then.”

“No, I know you can take care of yourself, it’s just...that’s Red Hood’s territory.”

Roy dropped the truck and winced. He’d known this would have to come up at some point; why hadn’t he figured out what to say? Of course he wasn’t going to tell Dick that he and Jason had screwed around, but should he tell him he’d seen him? He hadn’t told Oracle that Jason had been at the bodega, but had she reviewed the security footage? Did Dick already know?

“Considering I’m neither a gangster nor a supervillain, I think Jason’ll probably leave me alone,” Roy said carefully. Shit, should he have called him Red Hood?

“Yeah, well, Bruce and I aren’t either of those things and that didn’t do us any good,” Dick said. “Or Tim.”

“I’m also not—” Roy cut himself off. _Family_ might be a touchy word. “He has no reason to come after me.”

“He might do it to hurt _me_ ,” Dick said.

“Aw, Robbie, you care,” Roy teased. It was kind of nice to hear some concern for his well-being. He didn’t know how he felt about his friend apparently thinking he was only worth attacking if it hurt Dick, though. But that probably wasn’t how he’d meant it. “But I don’t think you’re being fair to him. He’s _angry_. He’s not a monster.”

“You haven’t seen him since he came back,” Dick said. Roy felt a degree of tension slip from his shoulders. Dick didn’t know about the bodega, at least. “He’s not the kid he used to be.”

“I know,” Roy said. Boy, did he. “I just don’t know if treating him like the enemy instead of the prodigal son is the right way to fix this.”

“Roy…” Dick sighed. “He’s not _you_.”

Roy frowned against the phone. “What do you mean?”

“I know you always want to give a pass to someone who screws up. And I admire that, I do,” Dick said. “You have a lot of empathy. But Jason _chose_ to do the things he did.”

“So did I,” Roy said, nettled for no very good reason.

“Well,” Dick said, in the tone that meant he was changing the subject rather than disagreeing with Roy out loud, “you didn’t hurt anyone but yourself.”

“...Sure. I guess,” Roy said. “I’ll keep an eye out. Listen, I gotta go.”

“Okay. Talk to you later, Roy.”

*

Two nights after that, he got a text from an unknown number: _Breaking up a dogfighting ring in the Narrows tonight. Could use backup. You want in?_

Roy stared at the text. _Backup._ This man had fought Batman to a standstill and taken down the head of more than one local criminal organization. Roy had _seen_ the way he fought. Did he really need backup, or did he just want to see Roy again? And if so, was it for crimefighting purposes or...something else?

He bit his lip. He could just ignore it. No matter what Dick said, he had a feeling that if he didn’t reply, Jason would leave him alone entirely.

_This a lethal outing?_ he texted back.

_Doesn’t have to be._

Roy glanced at where Lian was kneeling at the coffee table, coloring and singing along to _The Little Mermaid_. Then he glanced at the closet where he kept his gear.

_No killing and I’m in._

The answer was immediate. _Deal._

Well, whatever this was, it looked like Roy would be finding out soon enough.

Luckily, his usual babysitter was available, and Lian was very used to her daddy going out in kevlar at strange hours. After dinner, he kissed her goodbye and made his way to the address Jason had given him, a warehouse by the river.

Jason was in the helmet, which made sense but still left Roy feeling unreasonably disappointed. They ducked into the shadows of a nearby alley to discuss tactics.

“This is mostly a stupid nickel-and-dime operation, but almost everyone’s gonna be packing, so watch yourself,” Jason said.

“They’re not the only ones,” Roy noted, nodding towards the guns strapped to Jason’s broad thighs.

“I said I wouldn’t kill and I won’t. Doesn’t mean I can’t still find a use for these. Or are we banning all potentially deadly projectile weapons tonight?” Jason asked, nodding towards Roy’s bow. “Because I can go call Aqualad instead, _Speedy_.”

“I’m just saying,” Roy replied. “You really leaving those things in the holsters for little old me?”

The helmet was as impassive as ever. “I don’t want to risk hitting the dogs.”

Fair enough.

They took a shock and awe approach to breaking up the ring, dropping in from the ceiling with a flash grenade arrow and a lot of very noisy gunfire pointed safely up. There were nearly forty drunken assholes crammed into the warehouse, but the ones who were just there to drink and gamble scattered at their entrance, leaving Roy and Jason with the organizers and their underlings—seven all told.

The organizers might have been carrying, but most of them were too drunk or stupid or scared to even take their guns out. Roy was able to put down three of them and still spare enough attention to watch Jason out of the corner of his eye.

He was worth watching, in a real fight and not just a drunken barroom brawl. He didn’t move like Dick, all fluid grace and lighter-than-air acrobatics, but he didn’t have Batman’s firmly planted presence, either. What he had was an eclectic mix of styles, like he’d been trained by many very different masters; like he’d had to find a way to blend his weight and power with what seemed to be an unavoidably Robin-ish tendency to treat gravity as something optional. There was also an unmistakable _viciousness_ to the way he fought, something Roy had seen in both Dick and Batman, but rarely and never as a matter of course.

Roy probably shouldn’t have found it as hot as he did.

Jason kept his word: he didn’t kill anyone. None of their opponents were avoiding a hospital visit, though. Looking at the kenneled dogs as they alternately cringed and snarled, though, Roy couldn’t seem to make himself feel too bad about that.

Jason put in an anonymous call to the police, since the ASPCA was closed this late, and they were out of the warehouse and back on the streets. It hadn’t been much of a fight, but Roy’s body was still buzzing with adrenalin.

“Thanks for your help,” Jason said as they moved away from the river. Roy snorted. “What?”

“You didn’t need my help,” Roy said. “I mean, thanks for the vote of confidence, but you could have handled twice that many on your own, and I think you know that.”

“What’s your point?” Jason asked.

Roy stopped walking and folded his arms, making Jason turn to face him. “My _point_ is, do you want to find another bar? Or should we skip the charade and just go back to your place?”

Jason was silent for a long moment. Roy waited. He was pretty sure he’d read this right, but if he hadn’t…

“My place,” Jason said finally. “My bike’s a couple blocks away, we can take that.”

Roy grinned.

*

Roy’s neighborhood might have been Red Hood’s turf, but Jason didn’t live there. He lived a twenty-minute motorcycle ride away, in what Roy could tell was a gentrifying area from the way it sprouted luxury highrises like weeds.

Jason’s apartment was in one of those very same highrises. He stowed the bike in the basement garage and led Roy to the elevator. Inside, he had to turn a key before the elevator would let him hit the button for the penthouse.

“Fancy,” Roy said. “You can take the boy out of Wayne Manor, but you can’t take Wayne Manor out of the boy, huh?”

“Watch your mouth or you can go right back downstairs,” Jason said, pulling off his helmet and peeling off his mask. Roy eyed the security camera in the corner of the elevator, but he supposed Jason knew what he was doing. “This isn’t _his_ money.”

“And if I’d rather have _you_ watch my mouth instead?” Roy asked, smirking.

Jason raised his eyebrows at him. “That kind of line really work for you?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Jason huffed, but his cheeks were starting to take on a pink tinge again. Roy was looking forward to seeing how flushed they could get.

The elevator let them out into a short hallway with what looked like a single, normal apartment door—except there was a retinal scanner next to it, and Roy suspected the door itself was made of something sturdier than wood. Jason unlocked three locks, scanned his eye, keyed in a code, and opened the door with a glance at Roy like he expected him to say something about it. But Roy was used to the paranoia of both the uber-wealthy and superheroes.

Instead, he walked into the apartment and looked around appreciatively. “Okay, I have seen some nice digs in my day, but this is something else.”

Jason glanced over his shoulder as he locked the locks and rearmed the security system. “Oh, uh, yeah. It’s pretty nice.”

“Nice” was a ridiculous understatement for a sprawling penthouse with twelve-foot ceilings, one that clearly took up the whole top floor of the building. Just standing in the entrance Roy could see French doors leading to a balcony, an apparently functional fireplace, and a kitchen with what looked like restaurant-grade equipment. He couldn’t tell what was down the hallways branching off in opposite directions, but he was betting on at least six bedrooms, a fully equipped gym, and maybe—hopefully—a whirlpool tub.

He leaned his bow against the wall and shrugged out of his quiver as Jason stored his guns in a safe by the door. “You should give me a tour,” he said.

Jason blinked. “What, really?”

“Definitely.” Roy dropped his jacket on top of his quiver, and then his gloves. “Start with your bedroom.”

The surprise melted off of Jason’s face and he even went so far as to smile. It was enough excuse for Roy to cross the three steps to him and pull him into a kiss. Jason met him with less violence than last time, but just as much heat, his still-gloved hands landing on Roy’s biceps and tightening.

Okay, so maybe this was still a bad idea. Right now, Roy didn’t particularly care.

He kissed his way down Jason’s throat, his lips grazing a pale scar that angled diagonally across it. Jason flinched and Roy moved to the unscarred side of his neck, feeling Jason shudder against him.

He plucked at Jason’s jacket. “You are still way too dressed, and we are way too vertical,” he said, pulling back.

Jason rolled his eyes, but he didn’t actually look annoyed. “Sorry I’m not multitasking up to your standards."

“No need to multitask if you don’t want to,” Roy said sweetly. “Take me to your bedroom and I’ll do all the work of undressing you myself.”

He saw Jason’s throat jump, and then there was a firm hand clamped around Roy’s forearm and he was being dragged through that unnecessarily enormous living room and down a hall. He grinned and let Jason tow him along, using his free hand to loosen his belt and the other closures of his suit as they went because holy shit did he not want to wait one second longer than he had to to feel Jason’s skin against his.

The main suite was just as ridiculously huge as Roy would have expected, with a neatly made California king, a door branching off to an en suite bathroom, and little else. Roy reached for Jason’s jacket, and Jason put up a hand to stop him.

“You first,” he said.

“Fine, but don’t you dare take anything off,” Roy replied, bending to tug at the fastenings of his boots. “That’s my job.”

He wondered briefly if he was playing with fire, telling the Red Hood what to do—but though Jason’s throat bobbed, he didn’t say a word. It was a hell of a rush.

Jason watched as Roy yanked his boots off, then proceeded to strip the rest of the way out of his clothes. He didn’t bother to try to make it showy—he was too impatient, and besides, he still had Jason’s clothes to look forward to. Judging by the slight sound Jason made when Roy shoved down his pants and boxer briefs to reveal his half-hard dick, Roy’s lack of artistry wasn’t a problem.

Roy kicked his discarded pants into the corner of the room, and then he was stark naked in front of a fully clothed Jason, who looked flatteringly poleaxed. Roy grinned. He didn’t have any illusions about where he ranked on the scale of superhero heartthrobs, not after growing up next to Dick and Garth, but he knew he was in great shape, and that usually did the trick. Besides, being completely naked with someone who wasn’t had always kind of done it for him.

Not that that meant he was going to leave Jason’s clothes on. “Your turn,” he said, stepping in and sliding Jason’s jacket off his shoulders. His kevlar shirt was next, and then the T-shirt that clung like a second skin beneath it, leaving Jason bare from the waist up and breathing hard. Roy’s brain stuttered something helpless about _shoulders_ and _pecs_ and _abs_ , but he only let his hands skim over all that warm skin briefly, tracing the dark hair that was dusted over Jason’s chest down to where it thickened above the waistband of his pants.

Next came the holsters, which he had to bend to unbuckle properly. “Fuck, what these things do for your thighs and ass should be illegal,” he murmured, tossing them after the rest of their clothes.

“My _thighs?_ ” Jason repeated, arching an eyebrow.

“Do you not know what you have here?” Roy asked, spreading his palms over the muscular legs in front of him, and grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll get there.”

He backed Jason up towards the bed and gave him a little push. Jason let him have it, dropping onto the mattress with his legs hanging off the side. Roy knelt between them, and heard Jason’s breath hitch as he propped himself up on his elbows to watch. Roy’s grin widened. He knew perfectly well what Jason was thinking about with Roy kneeling naked between his spread legs. But all he did was tug off Jason’s boots, one by one, followed by his socks.

“I feel like it’s my birthday,” he said, reaching up to undo Jason’s fly. “And such a nice present to unwrap.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Jason said, rolling his eyes, but his cheeks were a gorgeous pink that made Roy want to kiss them.

Instead, he hooked his fingers into the waistbands of Jason’s pants and underwear at the same time and helped him wiggle out of them, tossing them out of the way. And then Jason was sitting completely naked on his bed, hard as a rock and so outrageously hot Roy was tempted to pinch himself.

Maybe he could get Jason to do the pinching later. For now, he straddled Jason’s lap and kissed him. Jason kissed back, his hands landing a little hesitantly on Roy’s waist, and Roy huffed against Jason’s mouth and reached back to move them to his ass.

“ _Oh_ ,” Jason said, digging his fingers in. Roy hummed his approval and rocked against him, his dick dragging against Jason’s, trapped between their stomachs.

“Now what should I do with my present?” he asked, fingers sliding into Jason’s curls so he could tip Jason’s head back to meet his gaze. “What do you want, Jay? You want me to suck you? You want to fuck? Tell me.”

Jason looked up at him, flushed and wide-eyed. God, those eyes were incredible. If he only knew the things that naturally pleading expression could get him. “I...fuck, Roy, I don’t…”

“Can I blow you?” Roy asked, partially to take pity on his indecision and partially because he’d wanted Jason’s dick in his mouth the second he’d seen it back in that bathroom. “Let me suck you off, Jay, please.”

“God,” Jason said shakily. “Yeah, okay. Yeah.”

Roy got up off of his lap and nudged him until he was lying approximately the right way on the bed, then settled down between his legs. “Like I was saying earlier, these are a goddamn _sin_ ,” he said, skating his hands up Jason’s thighs, feeling the muscle tense beneath his palms.

“They’re _thighs_ ,” Jason said, frowning perplexedly at him.

“They’re a bear trap, and I am an innocent fox walking into my doom.” Roy leaned down and nipped at the sensitive skin of Jason’s inner thigh, close to the seam of his groin.

Jason snorted. “That metaphor is both mixed and stupid.”

“Well, you’re the one who’s rendered me stupid with how hot you are, so it’s really your fault,” Roy replied, nipping at the other thigh both for symmetry and because he liked the way it made Jason jump.

“Jesus,” Jason said, throwing his arm over his face. “Weren’t you going to do something with your mouth besides run it?”

“Sweet talker,” Roy said, but he shifted forward and steadied Jason’s dick with one hand before giving the head an exploratory lick. Jason let out a strangled noise and Roy glanced up at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just—yeah,” Jason said, peeking down at him from under his forearm. He waved his other hand at Roy in a “go on” gesture. “Knock yourself out.”

Roy huffed a laugh and settled in to enjoy himself, licking and tasting Jason all over before taking him in his mouth. Jason felt good there, thick and hot, and it had been so long since Roy had been with anyone and even longer since he’d been with someone with a dick.

“Fuck,” Jason breathed as Roy bobbed his head, his thigh twitching and tensing beneath Roy’s hand. Roy glanced up from under his lashes to see that Jason was still hiding his face, his chin tipped back and the flush from before spilling all the way down his throat and across his chest.

Christ, he was gorgeous. Roy sucked harder, enjoying the way it made Jason swear as his stomach muscles clenched. Gone was the intimidating Red Hood from the questionable side of the Bowery. Oh, Jason was clearly still dangerous—the corded muscle of his forearm across his eyes and the knotted scars all over his body spoke to that. But he was all pleasure and need right now, and _Roy_ had done that, and it was beautiful.

He moved the hand on Jason’s dick lower, cupping and rolling his balls while his mouth slid farther down on his length. Jason swore again, hips jerking up, but Roy was ready for him, his other hand spreading flat over Jason’s stomach to hold him down. It wasn’t anywhere near enough to keep him in place, not with Roy’s lack of leverage, but it was a reminder. Even if Roy wouldn’t have minded being choked. Just a little.

“Fuck, Roy, oh shit fuck fuck…” Jason breathed. Roy glanced up again to see that Jason had moved his arm and was now tugging on his own curls like it was the only way he could think of to hold himself back. It made Roy moan around his dick and rub himself against the bed. He wanted to tell Jason to pull _his_ hair instead, but he didn’t want to stop sucking him long enough to do it, and his hair was too short these days anyway.

“ _Roy_ ,” Jason said, looking down and meeting Roy’s eyes, and Roy pulsed precome into the duvet. “Fuck, I’m gonna...I can’t…”

Then his eyes snapped shut and he was coming thick and bitter across Roy’s tongue. Roy groaned and swallowed what he could, pulling off to wipe the rest from his mouth with the back of his hand.

Jason stared at him, looking dazed. “Holy shit.”

“Jason, _Jason_ , I need—” Roy scrambled forward, up over the gorgeous muscled expanse of Jason until he could kiss him, hard. Jason clutched at him, one hand in his hair and the other on his ass, and Roy slipped a hand between them to jerk frantically at his own dick.

“Fuck,” Jason said against his mouth, and looked down. “What should I...how can I…?”

“Just…” Roy grabbed Jason’s hand out of his hair and brought it to his cock. “Like that. Fast and hard.”

“God,” Jason choked, but he obeyed, pumping Roy’s dick just like he wanted it, like he _needed_ it, and Roy panted against Jason’s shoulder and babbled nonsense until he came all over Jason’s stomach.

He sagged, dropping his sweaty forehead to Jason’s equally sweaty collarbone for a minute before rolling over to flop beside him. “Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed. He propped himself up and reached for the tissues on the nightstand, wiping off his hand and stomach with a slight wrinkle to his nose that made Roy smile. “What?” Jason asked when he noticed.

“Nothing,” Roy said. “You’re just cute.”

Jason’s eyebrows went up. “That’s the last thing I am.”

“If you say so.”

Jason rolled his eyes but threw out the tissue and let his head drop to the pillow without further protest. Roy rolled onto his side to study his profile—the strong line of his brow, the crooked bump where his nose had been broken, the turned-down curve of his lower lip.

“ _What?_ ” Jason said after another long minute of Roy watching him.

“ _What_ what?” Roy asked.

“You’re staring at me.”

“I’m _looking_ at you. I had your dick in my mouth a minute ago, I’m allowed.”

“Yeah?” Jason scoffed, although his cheeks went pink again. “How would you like it if I just lay here and ogled _you?_ ”

Roy propped himself up on one elbow, pinup-style. “Be my guest.”

Looking extremely put-upon, Jason rolled onto his side and glowered his way up and down Roy’s body. But his expression softened after a minute, like he was actually looking because he wanted to and not just to make a point. Roy shifted slightly under the scrutiny as his dick made a valiant but futile effort to get right back in the game.

Jason suddenly reached out like he was going to touch Roy’s chest, but he pulled back before he made contact. “What happened here?”

Roy looked down, startled. Jason was looking at the scars from his shooting. Five ugly little pockmarks where the bullets had gone in, and the thin vertical ridge of scar tissue where they’d cut him open to get the bullets out.

He wasn’t surprised that Jason had noticed them. Roy had scars everywhere, the cost of fighting crime since he was twelve, but these were the nastiest, and they hadn’t had much time to fade.

What surprised him was that he’d been so eager to get his hands on Jason that he’d forgotten about them himself. It was the first time the shooting hadn’t been weighing on the back of his mind in...a long time. He wasn’t sure what that meant.

“Took five bullets in the chest,” he said. “I know it’s not the prettiest thing to look at.”

Jason shook his head. “Not the prettiest…? You’re so… _fuck_ , it’s unfair.” He made a helpless gesture that seemed to encompass all of Roy before his lips tightened. “But if you don’t like scars, I don’t know what you’re doing here.”

Because Jason had them too, of course, and not just on his chest. A lot of them were pale and faded, like most of Roy’s. A lot of them weren’t.

It wasn’t that Roy hadn’t _noticed_. It was just that he hadn’t processed them as any different than the broken nose or the full mouth or the loose curls that were now in wild, hilarious disarray from Jason tugging on them—all part and parcel of a gorgeous man who hit Roy’s buttons so precisely it was like he’d been engineered to do so.

“I don’t like getting shot in the chest,” he said. “If you’re not convinced that I think you’re hot as hell, give me ten minutes and I’ll try again.”

Jason’s blush went darker and he rolled onto his back again, but he didn’t say anything. Well, fine, if that was how he wanted it… Roy pushed onto his hands and knees and crawled forward to lean over that blushing face.

“Hi,” he said.

Jason’s expression went soft again. “Hi,” he replied, and let Roy kiss him, slow at first but growing gradually more heated, gradually more _urgent_ …

Roy’s stomach growled audibly.

Jason burst out laughing against Roy’s mouth, and Roy sat back on his heels. “Okay, okay,” he said. “I get hungry after both crimefighting and sex. Sue me.”

“What if I just feed you?” Jason asked, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Come on.”

Jason pulled on pajama pants before they left the bedroom, so Roy tugged on his own boxer briefs to at least attempt to match the dress code. The huge refrigerator in the huge kitchen was largely empty, but there was a pizza box with three leftover slices in it.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Roy said as Jason turned on the oven to preheat it. “You can just bang it in the microwave.”

Jason turned to stare at him. “I could heat it up over an open flame, too, but I thought we’d be civilized.”

“Feels like a microwave is actually significantly further along from open flame cooking than an oven,” Roy pointed out.

Jason sniffed. “You can eat soggy crust in your own home, Harper, but not mine,” he said.

Roy turned around and leaned back against the counter to appraise said home. It really was a great apartment—or at least, it was the _bones_ of a great apartment, because it barely looked like anyone lived here. There was no art on the walls, no random belongings strewn about the way there always had been everywhere Roy had lived, and even the amount of furniture Jason owned seemed way too sparse for the floor space. It was...sterile. Cavernous, like if Roy raised his voice he would hear an echo.

“Did you just move in?” Roy asked.

“Mm? No, I’ve been here about six months,” Jason said. “Why?”

_Because your lack of clutter makes me weirdly depressed_ seemed like a rude thing to say, so Roy shrugged instead. “Just jealous, I guess. Our whole place is smaller than your bedroom, and there’s two of us.”

Jason frowned as he put the leftover slices in the oven to heat up. “Us?”

“Lian,” Roy said, and when Jason’s frown deepened, clarified: “My daughter.”

“Right. Shit,” Jason said, closing the oven. “You have a kid.”

“Yeah,” Roy said, raking a hand through his hair. “I guess you’ve known as long as I have, huh? That’s weird.”

He hadn’t known Jade was pregnant. He hadn’t known he was a father until Jade had attacked him while he was on a Titans mission. Him and Jason, the one and only time they’d met before Jason’s death. Jason’s presence always seemed to recede from those memories, buried in the overwhelming shock that _he had a child_.

Roy felt guilty, suddenly, for barely remembering that Jason had been there for what might have been the single most important moment of his life. After all, Jason had died only months later. Roy should have done him the honor of remembering him better.

“Yeah,” Jason echoed. “I didn’t really think about...I mean, I remember Cheshire showing up, but it never felt real, you know? And then…”

“Shit happened?” Roy suggested.

Jason gave him a wry look. “That’s one way to put it. Anyway.” He visibly shook it off. “Her name’s Lian?”

“Yeah.” Roy couldn’t help his smile. He never could, talking about her. “She’s five. She’s in kindergarten now. She’s so fucking smart, Jay, it’s ridiculous.”

And just like that, an impulsive hookup turned into gushing about his daughter while they ate leftover pizza sitting in that cold, empty kitchen. He told Jason about all the funny little things Lian did that reminded him of himself or Jade or even Ollie; how she already had an eye for a clear shot; how she had the biggest heart of anyone he’d ever met. He told Jason about how much he hated uprooting her over and over again, from England to New York to Ireland to California to DC and back to New York.

“And now we’re here in Gotham,” he concluded. “Not for very long, because as soon as I hear from the Feds we’re headed to DC. I’m hoping it’s not more than six months. But in the meantime we’re in this shitty, tiny apartment, which...I mean, you know the neighborhood. And the local school isn’t great. But what am I going to do, burn through my savings to pay the rent somewhere we’re only going to live for a few months? That’s _if_ I can find a better place that won’t make me sign a one- or two-year lease.” He dropped the last of his crust on his plate. “Sorry, sorry, you don’t want to hear me complaining about kindergarten placement and lease durations.”

“It’s fine,” Jason said. But his brow was furrowed and he paused for a minute before adding, “There’s a two-bedroom available in this building, actually. If you wanted it.”

“Ha!” Roy said. “I’d love it. But this place is _way_ out of my price range right now.”

“No, I mean…” Jason paused again. “I own the building. I meant you could just...use it. However long you need. No lease, no rent.”

Roy blinked at him. His first thought was that of _course_ Jason owned the building. If Roy hadn’t already known full well that Jason was a Bat at heart by the way he moved and the way he brooded, casually dropping that he _owned a luxury highrise_ would have done the trick. None of them could stand to spend a hundred where they could spend a thousand, and Battish paranoia certainly explained the level of security it took to get into the penthouse. It also explained why Jason had felt comfortable taking off his mask in the elevator; probably no one else ever saw that footage.

His second thought was that Jason was _kidding_. Rent on an apartment in a building like this, in a neighborhood like this, had to be astronomical, even if it wasn’t the penthouse. No one was going to just hand something like that to someone like Roy, especially not a guy who barely knew him and whose resume skewed quite a bit closer toward “supervillain” than “philanthropist.”

“Wow,” Roy said, laughing. “I knew I was good in bed, but no one’s ever offered me an apartment just for easy access before.”

“Oh,” Jason said. “That...uh...I.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Is that on the table?”

For the second time in two minutes, Roy stared at him. Was Jason _actually_ offering him an apartment in exchange for sex? “It’s your table,” he said finally.

Jason seemed to take that literally, staring at the black, lacquered surface of the kitchen table between them. “You were right about that neighborhood,” he said. “You shouldn’t be stuck there if you don’t have to be. _Lian_ shouldn’t be stuck there. There’s an apartment just sitting empty a few floors down from this one. And if you’re here, and...I mean, I had a good time tonight, and the other night, so…”

He looked up and stuck his chin out mulishly, like he was going to say what he was going to say, and Roy could take it or leave it. But his cheeks blazed pink.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s on the table.”

Roy swallowed. Okay. So Jason _was_ offering him an apartment in exchange for sex.

He should say no, right? He shouldn’t even be considering this. He should say no, and delete the number he’d already saved as Jason’s in his phone, and avoid teaming up with Red Hood in the future. Dick had even warned him, although admittedly Roy didn’t think Dick could have foreseen...this.

But he’d also had fun. Hell, just going down on Jason had been one of the hottest things he’d done in ages. If the conversation hadn’t taken this strange twist, he would have been squinting at the clock on the microwave to see if there was time for a second round before he had to get home to Lian and the babysitter. He couldn’t deny that he liked the idea of living close enough to Jason for an easy afternoon delight or three. He could think of _plenty_ more that he wanted to do to that gorgeous body.

He also couldn’t deny that he’d feel better having Lian in a safer neighborhood, in a building like a fortress. And the money he’d save was nothing to sneeze at, either. Plus, it wasn’t like it was forever—he was moving to DC in a few months. Really, Jason was offering to take away all of Roy’s worries in exchange for something Roy would have been angling for a chance to do _anyway_.

He should still say no.

“Okay,” he said.

Jason’s jaw dropped. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah.” Roy shrugged. “I mean, if you’re really happy to let us use the apartment, I’m happy to let you use _me_.” He ended it with a leer, unable to help himself, and Jason went even redder.

“I don’t...I mean…” Jason paused, frowning again. “I don’t want anything from you that _you_ wouldn’t want.”

God. Under the big scary exterior, he was really so fucking cute. “Jay. Trust me. I’m having a real hard time thinking of anything I wouldn’t be eager for you to do to me,” Roy said. Jason probably couldn’t have blushed any harder at that point, but it looked like he was trying anyway. “But I promise I’ll tell you if there’s something I’m not into.”

“Okay,” Jason said. “Okay. So I guess...we’re doing this?”

“I guess we’re doing this,” Roy agreed, and wondered just how big of a mistake he was making this time.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hi on tumblr!](https://pluckyredhead.tumblr.com/)


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